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Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Selling Biscuit occasions through Biscuits Re-branding

United
Biscuits - who own brands such as Jacobs and McVitie's - is in the midst of spending £12m in a re-branding the business.

Chief
executive Martin Glenn said the campaign came about after a year
of research that found biscuits evoked childhood memories, "images of
warmth, comfort, sociability, sharing".

"The
challenge we've got at McVitie's is that, whilst we're the biggest in the UK,
we're facing a lot more foreign competition... so we need to up our game."

Fruits of Success' Little Bogdan
was an audition hopeful for
the Advertising campaign (not)

Fluffy
kittens, corgi puppies and orange-eyed tarsiers are being used to help
sell more Digestives and Jaffa cakes by United Biscuits ahead of a likely sale this year by its private equity owners.

Biscuit Heritage

The 160-year-old
McVitie’s brand relaunched with a £12m advertising campaign,
focused on “sweet” animals that Martin Glenn, chief executive, said was aimed
at “supporting our efforts to drive growth for the category”.

He has
embarked on what the group said would be a record level of capital investment
this year, of more than £50m, compared with £38m last year.

The private
equity companies bought United Biscuits for £1.6bn eight years ago – an
investment horizon that is longer than the norm in their industry. They sold
the KP snacks unit last year for an undisclosed price, thought to have been
£400m.

Money in Biscuits

Jeff van der
Eems, chief executive of the international division, said: “The sale of KP
Snacks in 2012 has allowed us to focus on our core businesses of McVitie’s and
Jacobs, and to expand our international operations which we hope to account for
20 % of sales in three years.”

Mr Glenn has
since regrouped the group’s products into two divisions – sweet products under
the McVitie’s label; and savoury biscuits, such as Mini Cheddars and Carr’s,
under the Jacob’s brand of crackers.

United
Biscuits is the second-largest biscuits group in the €12bn industry, with a 7 % market share, which is less than half that of industry leader, Mondelez.
The maker of Oreo and TUC biscuits has 17 %, according to Euromonitor.

In the UK,
where 90 % of households buy its products, United Biscuits has a 40 % market share.

But it has
had a tough recession in the face of “difficult market conditions” for at least
the past three years as consumers focused on “value”, the company
said.

Broken Biscuits

The market
is fragmented, highly competitive and is having to address consumers’
increasing health concerns.

Marc Kennis,
analyst at Rabobank, which recently issued a report into the sector, said
biscuit makers faced volatile wheat and sugar prices and hard bargaining
retailers.

“This
creates substantial uncertainty in the variable cost base for manufacturers,
who have limited room to pass on any price increase to customers due to intense
competition and the sheer size of food retailers. Biscuit companies are caught
between a rock and a hard place,” he said.

What have fluffy kittens or a tarsier got that a baby meerkat has not ?

The quirky
campaign, the biscuit makers’ biggest investment in media, highlights the
occasions in the day when its biscuits are eaten and the feeling people get
from eating them.

One Grey
London created spot for Digestives shows a family settling down to relax with a
biscuit before a Corgi puppy emerges when the packet is unwrapped.

Another for Chocolate Digestives sees a group
of nurses settling down for a tea break and being confronted by kittens when
they reach for the biscuits,

A third for Jaffa Cakes shows a young man confronted with a Tarsier when opening
a pack (see ads below).

The Biscuit Mix for Marketing

The TV
campaign is supported by GreyPossible created digital activity, including the
launch of a new McVitie’s website,
social media and press. The campaign will also see an extensive in-store campaign created by Dialogue London.

The McVitie’s logo features prominently in
all 'executions' and all packaging has been redesigned to give the name more
prominence.

Brands including Club and Penguin will be brought
under McVitie’s later this year.

It is hoped
the ‘family of brands’ strategy will
create a halo effect and boost sales across the portfolio.

United
Biscuits wants the campaign to help it achieve its ambitious target of claiming
a 30 % of the sweet biscuit
market for McVitie’s, up from the 21% it enjoys at the moment by
capturing more of the 7 billion “biscuit
occasions” it says take place in the UK every year.

At an event
in London to mark the launch of the campaign, Glenn said the relaunch of
McVitie’s is an example of how the company is
“re-energising” to “take our place on the world stage”.

The firm
plans to employ the same master brand
strategy to Jacob’s later this year , with savoury brands such as Cheddars
and Mini Cheddars joining the likes of Cream Crackers under the Jacob’s

Back in the day...

In my childhood I remember the Lincoln Cream biscuit . The Lincoln cream had a pattern of dots on the top in concentric circles. The McVitie's version had the
word 'Lincoln' embossed on to the biscuit at the centre. I wonder whether its return is in the United Biscuits re-branding plan. Little Bogdan will be up for acting in any advert for Lincoln Creams !Related "Tea and Biscuits" selling skills linksTea time personality matrix

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About Me

I have been a training consultant for 30 years.
I also research Buyers Views of Sales people for an ongoing research study I have done for the last twelve years
The majority of photographs, videos and audios in this blog are taken on my new Fujifilm Fine pix T from May 2012 The Pencil Sketches are mine also